by Alexis Angel
I’m not mad at him, though; I’m frustrated that I can’t convince him, let alone myself, that me puking—in the morning—is due to food poisoning.
All signs point to something more permanent and life-changing. A type of thing that you can’t get from a restaurant or purchase last-minute.
I clutch onto the bag and stumble on my feet, feeling more light-headed as this reality punches me in the gut.
“Let me take that. Come sit over here with me.” Tanner takes my designer puke bag and guides me over to two plush chairs off to the side of the coat rack. “Do you need me to get you something?”
I sit down, and I melt when I see his expression.
He’s sincerity warms me, and from the looks of it, he’s genuinely interested in taking care of me. I knew he was charming, but this is heartening.
I shake my head, declining his help while also ridding myself of these thoughts.
But like him, they keep nagging at me.
And this damn gut feeling begins to suffocate me.
Okay, I need to calm down and do the logistics. That’s what I’ve always relied on in dire situations.
Looking down at my fingers, I do the math. I count how many days it’s been since my last period and when I should’ve started this month.
It was three fucking days ago.
Shit…
So, according to my calculations, I’m three days late.
But it’s not something to freak out about yet—though the sudden bout of sickness in the morning isn’t exactly comforting.
I also remember—in fact, I clearly remember—using protection when we made our sex tape.
Right?
No, we didn’t. I can’t even find a moment during the night when that was discussed.
Humiliation spreads through me, and my cheeks blush—that’s not like me. I’m always so…prepared.
But it was—it is—Tanner. He has this ability to get under my skin, ravish and unleash parts of me I barely let myself see.
Him and his magical, charming cock.
I must’ve been too wrapped up in our game to remember it’s real ramifications—other than the ones we planned.
And this is not fucking planned.
My hands rub my stomach, hoping to feel a sense of ease, and I take a big breath. We might have more than a wedding and a collection on our hands.
Tanner places his hand on my knee, aiming to comfort me.
“Elsa, what’s going on?” He snaps me out of my thoughts, and I look at him.
I stay silent for a moment, assessing him, trying to figure out what it would be like if I was carrying his child.
If he, in fact, did put a baby in me.
I flashback to when he told me he would put a baby in me as he fucked me on camera, and a surge of nausea thrashes into me. I gag.
This is too fucking surreal.
I cradle my head in my hands, and I search to make some sense of what’s happening.
We’re too close for this to blow up in our faces now. And we’ve done too much to get to this point—our companies profitable again and us not on the verge of getting fired.
There’s way too much on the line to tell him. And to worry him for possibly no reason at all.
Who knows if my suspicions are right? Even if everything in me is telling me I am.
“Elsa?”
Shit, I should answer him. I completely forgot what he asked. I’m too wrapped up in my own world that I’m barely in this one.
“What’d you say?”
He clears his throat, a sign he’s annoyed, pissed, or perhaps both.
“What’s going on?” He pauses after ever word, enunciating as if he’s speaking to a child.
“Like I told you, nothing is going on. I am fine.” I respond in the same manner.
“You really don’t look like it,” he scolds.
“Excuse me?”
I can’t deny he’s wrong. For the first time—in a very long time—I know I don’t look good. And I know for a fact that watching someone throw up is very unappealing. Especially given what I threw up and what I threw up in.
So, yeah, I know I don’t look good.
But I won’t let him have it. If I admitted to that, he would definitely know something is up.
And I’m not starting fires for no reason—at least before we know for sure.
“You puked. How in the hell does someone come back from that looking fine?” His tone is serious, with a detectable hint of sarcasm.
“You’re supposed to say that I do come back looking more than fine.” I lean back in the chair and cross my arms.
My weakness is slowly dissolving, and I feel my body coming back to life.
“Okay, fine. You look fine, Elsa. Now, tell me what the fuck is going on.” Each time he says fine, the tone gets sharper and louder. He’s getting more and more irritated.
Well, so am I. I’m fucking livid, actually.
This dreadful reality starts to pour, drowning me—I’m three days late with morning sickness, and it’s all because I didn’t use protection with my pretend fiancé who I made a sex tape with.
Fuck me.
“Tanner. I don’t know how many times I have to say it: there’s nothing wrong. It must’ve been a fluke accident, and I have food poisoning. I don’t know what else to tell you.” My acting skills are really paying off.
“Well, I don’t believe you.”
“Okay, great. And what am I supposed to do about that?”
“Fucking convince me, that’s what you do!” He does his best to quiet his yelling, but he’s sucking at it.
The few people who’ve walked by glance at us, and some visibly jump.
“I don’t have to do anything. Especially fucking convince you of something that’s not even happening.” I stand, fed up with his bullshit.
Without a second glance, I storm out the front door, leaving him behind with my designer puke bag.
And he can stay, like, foaming at the mouth all day for all I care. That’s what he gets for not listening to me.
And I have nothing to explain to him…yet.
We’ll cross that bridge when and if we have to. For the time being, I’m content with him being blissfully unaware.
Chapter 26
Tanner
Okay, admittedly, this isn’t the first bag of puke that I’ve ever been stuck holding that isn’t mine. But I’ll be damned if it isn’t the heaviest.
How the fuck could she hold that much in her stomach?
But that’s hardly the point right now.
Elsa is quite the exceptional saleswoman, but this time, I ain’t buying what she’s selling.
There’s more, a lot more, going on than she’s telling me. And you best believe I plan to find out just what the fuck it is that she’s hiding from me.
I just need to get rid of this fucking gaudy bag filled with vomit first.
My eyes look up and down the hallway for a trash bin or anything I can hide this fucking bag in when I hear an oh-so-familiar shrill voice coming up behind me—Jean Mayer.
Have you ever seen the movie ‘American Pie’? If you haven’t, then you should.
Jean’s like the real-life version of Stifler’s Mom from that movie. It’s scary how similar the two of them are. She’s blonde, busty—thanks to implants—and has a thing for young cocks.
Fuck, she’s got more wieners at her disposal than Oscar Mayer.
She’s got an eye for talent though, which is why she sits on the board as our VP of Talent Relations. It’s a job she takes seriously and is very hands on—if you catch my drift.
She’s screeching at her poor assistant—her third this month—about how her slim, soy, banana cherry latte was too cold for her this morning.
But once she sees me—and I wish she hadn’t—she puts her abuse on hold to bat her fake eyelashes at me.
Her dark blue eyes look me over like she’s eyeballing a T-bone steak on the grill.
As much as I can’t blame
her—I do look extra tasty today, if I say so myself—she’s definitely not my type. Even if Elsa isn’t in my life right now, the woman would have no chance…too much botox.
“Well, hello, Tanner. It’s so lovely to see you in the office today. Feels like forever since I’ve gotten to lay my eyes on you,” she coos.
“You know me. Always working away. Got to stay on top of everything.”
Ah, fuck, I shouldn’t have said that.
Jean licks her lips, and they quirk upward into a suggestive smirk.
“Hmm, I like a strong man on top.”
And there it is! I’ve left that door wide open, haven’t I?
“I bet you say that to all the men.”
“Only the ones I want to eat.”
I’ve had a lot of weird and awkward encounters with Jean over the years. It has basically become our thing at this point.
But this one right here? This takes the fucking cake.
“Luckily for you, this time, I’ve already got a dinner date planned with a couple lovely prospects from Italy. I do want to thank you for getting my bag ready for me though.”
“Your bag? Oh, your bag!”
This is the part where the awkward factor gets dialed up to eleven.
Jean reaches out and takes her bag from my grasp. Her hand lingers on mine for longer than needed, and I catch her bite down on her lower lip.
“So kind and thoughtful of you to get my bag for me.”
“Yes, well, about that—”
“We’ll have to catch up soon, darling. But, I really must run.”
Jean hangs up on her assistant and opens her bag, never taking her hungry eyes off me while she does, and drops her phone into it.
She flashes me a wink, not even realizing what she’s done, and walks past me to go meet her next victims.
I’m really not looking forward to the next time I see her after this.
Now that the Queen of the Cougars is gone, I can get after Elsa.
I rush for the stairs like I’m the Coyote chasing the Road Runner, only I plan to succeed where my cartoon counterpart has failed time and time again.
I’m leaping down half a flight of stairs at a time. At this rate, I’ll be able to catch Elsa in the lobby in no time.
But when I reach the lobby, I don’t see Elsa.
I wait for each elevator to open up, and she’s not in any of them.
Now I’m annoyed, frustrated, and angry.
This is not how I wanted to spend my day.
My fingers slide through my hair as I let out a heavy sigh. I turn to go back upstairs when I come face to face with the last person I ever wanted to—or expected—to see.
“Hello, Tanner. We need to talk.”
Jackson fucking Halo, former owner of Crooked Halo—and my former boss.
Apparently, fate decided to show me that things can always get worse.
“Look, Jackson, I’m kind of busy right now, and I have no time to talk, or walk down memory lane, or do anything else that you came here for.”
Honestly, I never really thought highly of Jackson at all.
The guy gave me my big break—and I’ll always be grateful for it—but he really did put the crooked in Crooked Halo.
If it hadn’t been for his colossal fuck up, things between Elsa and I wouldn’t have likely crashed and burned like it did.
And I wouldn’t be stuck in this lobby trying to hunt her down after handing Stifler’s Mom a three-thousand-dollar bag filled of puke.
So talking to Jackson isn’t exactly on my list of shit I have time for today…or any day, really.
“You think that, but the truth is, Tanner, we need to sit down and talk. Everything else on your plate, including Elsa, can wait.”
I dislike how calm and matter-of-fact his tone is right now. Something about it just isn’t sitting right in my stomach.
“And what makes you so fucking sure of that, huh? More insider trading tips? Or did you just consult a Magic 8-Ball instead?”
It’s pretty obvious from the clench of his jaw that he doesn’t take too kindly to my snark.
Well, too fucking bad for him.
“I’m going to tell you this right now, Tanner,” he starts as he closes the short gap between us, his voice cold. “If you want to keep your company afloat and make sure that everyone around us still has a job come the end of the month, then you’re going to come with me up to your office and talk now. Otherwise, all of this is going to come crashing down on your head. So what’s it going to be, hotshot?”
Chapter 27
Elsa
I don’t really need to buy this overpriced packet and pee-on-some-stick to know what’s going on with me right now.
The writing is on the fucking wall. If there’s one thing I know well, it’s my own body. I know it better than anyone else in the world.
My body ticks like clockwork.
For a while now, I’ve ignored the symptoms.
There’s been my sense of smell. Suddenly, I’ve been able to pick up the scent of coffee five blocks away.
I’m a New Yorker, but even for us, that’s pushing it.
The vomiting this morning was icing on the dipshit cake, really.
I mean, how stupid can I I get? Why didn’t I make Tanner wear a condom?
Why didn’t I look after birth control?
I’m Elsa fucking Blakely. I should have had my shit together.
Instead, I let Tanner Sharpe and his magic cock send my shit spiraling out of control.
I grab the damn test and turn towards the cashier.
“Elsa Blakely,” an all too familiar voice croons behind me. “Come here often?
Out of all the corner shops in NYC, of course, I picked the one that Lis Langley frequents.
Life sucks sometimes.
“I’m busy, Lis,” I tell her. “Some other time.”
“Looks like you’re still deciding. Mind if I ask you a few questions?”
A few questions my ass.
Lis doesn’t know how to only ask a few questions. If you agree to an interview with her, you’re there for the long haul.
The wave of nausea seems to be returning. It’s hard to say if it’s the morning sickness or how much I don’t want to fucking deal with this reporter at this point.
It strikes me that I could puke on her just to get her to leave.
But then…she might put two and two together and figure out my predicament.
Christ. Who am I kidding?
I’m standing here with a pregnancy test in hand. She knows already.
There’s no need for me to be standing in front of the pregnancy test kits if I’m not thinking about buying one. And if I’m thinking about buying a test kit, I must be thinking I’m pregnant. Lis can be obnoxious, but she’s not dumb.
“Tell me, Elsa,” Lisa taps her red pen onto her notebook. “What do you know of Tanner’s family?”
The question makes me narrow my eyes. Where’s she going with this?
“I mean, you know…what do you know about his mother, father?” Lisa raises one eyebrow into a perfect arch while the other one stays dead straight. “Story is that he’s from the wrong side of the tracks…but you know how stories go, right?”
“You’re the spin master, Lis. People like Tanner and I are just characters in your wicked little web.”
“Maybe so. Looks like you’re about to enter a new chapter, huh. Is it his?”
“Bold question, Langley.”
“I’m a bold reporter. What about Tanner and his rise in the company Crooked Halo? He was pretty young at the time, right? Something more to his rise to career fame than meets the eye? Did he sleep his way to the top?”
“I wonder the same thing about you all the time.”
“What about his mother? Do you know anything about her? Single woman, maybe threw herself at different men, and then when Tanner was born…”
It’s getting more and more tempting to just push her into a shelf of maxi pads and leave h
er to concoct whatever story she wants to.
Deep down, I know that’s not the best way to handle this situation. I need to keep a clear head and come up with a strategy.
“You ask a lot of questions, Lis.”
“You don’t answer many, though. What gives, Elsa? You’re usually better at the back and forth than this. Pregnancy brain?”
“You’re asking questions I don’t have answers to.”
“Why don’t you let me fill you in then?”
It’s my turn to raise an eyebrow. “The last time someone said that to me, I ended up needing a pregnancy test.”
“Funny.”
I shrug. “Why would you tell me anything?”
Lis’s perfect red lips break into a big smile.
“Call it professional respect, a sisterhood of successful women. You know I’ve been looking around a little.”
“More like snooping.”
“All’s fair in the game of journalism. Anyway, I’ve looked into Tanner’s past and found out that, believe it or not…Jackson Halo…he’s Tanner’s father. I got an interview with his mother and everything, and she confirmed. I’m sure you can connect the rest of the dots yourself, sweetheart.”
I swallow, but suddenly, my mouth has gone dry.
“That doesn’t mean anything, Lis.”
That’s a lie.
“Look, I just I thought you should know first, particularly bearing in mind your current situation. But soon, the entire world will know.”
And Tanner might go down as a result.
God. A year ago, I wouldn’t have given a shit.
A year ago, I would have let him take the knocks in his stocks and deal.
But now, we’re in this together.
And I can’t let him go down for this.
“Okay,” I say, “how about I offer you a deal?”
There goes that single eyebrow thing again.
“What kind of deal?”
“You don’t publish anything about anyone for the next twenty-four hours,”
“Why would I do that?”
I roll my eyes. Why do people interrupt before the full deal is put on the table?
“And in return, I give you my baby exclusive.”
“You’re pretty sure it’s a positive for someone who hasn’t taken the test yet.”
